Skecon 2015 – Not quite as good as last year

Hello peeps!

It is finally time for the Skecon 2015 summary! ^o^
As you probably know I once again attended Skecon in Skellefteå, Sweden. It was held during the first weekend of July (3rd to 5th) in a building called Folkparken.
This time our traveling setup was a bit different, mainly because a guy known as Jäätynyt Enkeli was not with us this time. :( Our Skecon invaders consisted this year of me, Hasakitsuki, Sairu-chan and her little brother! Yep, this means that Karri couldn't make it after all...

Skecon advertisement in the Skellefteå bus stop! :'D

Our journey to Skellefteå began on Friday morning. Seeing how the convention opened its doors at 13:35 we could take a very early bus and arrive at Skellefteå just in time! (the bus ride takes around 4 hours)
We had decided on taking one of the earlier buses so that we would have a bit more than one hour of time before the con opened. But because of Jäätynyt Enkeli being abroad Sairu-chan and her bro couldn't sleep over at his place (they live in a different town and our apartment is way too small) the night before and so there ended up being some complications with the buses. Me and Hasakitsuki got onto the planned bus but when I didn't see the second half of our company in there anywhere I started worrying. I tried to call and text Sairu-chan multiple times during the trip, but to no avail. I started getting really worried.
What if she had forgotten or overslept?
What if she had taken the wrong bus?
What if something else had happened on the way?
It was really distressing to not being able to reach her at all! I spent most of the bus trip worrying about her and her brother and hoping that I'd see them safely at Skellefteå when we arrived there...

One thing though! I want to mention that a few days before the con I decided to repaint my wooden swords that had arrived for a while ago – yep, I needed them for my Skecon cosplays.
These I ordered online so that I have a wooden generic katana set for all those cosplays that don't really need specific swords; I'm too lazy to make new swords for all my samurai cosplays, haha. XD My old ones broke because of an accident after Tracon 2013, so I got replacement ones...
But when I got the swords I noticed that the blades had this silver paint that was motherflippin' BLING BLING SPARKLING GLITTER MONSTERS!
I was just like... WHY?? ლ(ಠ益ಠ)ლ

I totally took my silver spray paint and went outside to repaint the blades before assembling them – so much better! Bling katanas are just not realistic lol. ._. I swear these were so sparkly that they could have repelled even Satan himself!
Funny thing is that I bought the swords from the exact same seller on eBay and my previous ones definitely weren't glitter-treated... 

Before photo on top and after on bottom.

So yeah, back to the Skecon journey!
Me and Hasakitsuki jumped off at a bus stop close to Folkparken and –holy bugamajoola– was it steaming hot!! The air was so warm it was stifling and humid like hell! Keeping my black hoodie on was like being boiled alive – since when does it get this friggin' hot in northern Sweden?!?
Oh well, we dragged our mountain of luggage to Folkparken and there we just sat down on the floor and watched people appearing from all directions. It was horrible to wait outside because of the heat, especially because I'm kinda heat sensitive and start to feel sick if it's really warm. I also burn really easily so I'm kinda forced to overdress and wear long-sleeves when it's boiling hot... :<

Skecon entrance around one hour before doors opened.

While sitting there and waiting I was really trying to scout for Sairu-chan and her bro, but I didn't see them anywhere! I tried to call her a few times again but no answer either. :( I was just crossing my fingers that she would show up any minute while I was looking at the ends of the different paths one could take to reach Folkparken...
The clock struck the time for the doors to open and this one Skecon worker came out and trolled everyone; he just went like "ARE YOU READY FOR SKECON GUYS?! :DD" and when everyone shouted "YESSSSSS" he just turned around and went all "one minute more" and abruptly closed the door and went back inside. xD It was both hilarious and frustrating at the same time lol.
It did take more than one minute after that before the doors opened but hey, they did!

I got my con ticket without any issues and went straight upstairs to go take a shower because, oh god, the toast! Showering seriously felt so good after standing outside in that humid heat...
After showering I started putting on my cosplay – Hajime Saitou from Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan. It didn't feel like the best idea ever to put on a semi-heavy cosplay when the weather was so devilishly warm but oh well, cosplay plans are cosplay plans and it would have been a waste to have the costume taking place in the suitcase and then not using it; especially when it's a cosplay that takes much space, like most of my kimono cosplays do. *shrugs*
I struggled with my makeup for a while but after some hours I was finally done, costume on and all. But guess what guys? :D Yeah, of course as soon as I had my costume on and was ready to go photoshoot (which was one of the main reasons I brought Saitou to Skecon) then it had to start raining cats and dogs for the rest of the day! Murphy's law strikes again. ._.
This totally means that I got no photoshoot, which was quite the bummer. Why did I bother?
But to compensate I at least took a few selfies, while hanging around, just to prove that "yes, I was in cosplay" on Friday.

Luckily I did find Sairu-chan and her bro soon after I had changed into cosplay; it was so nice to see that they had made it here safely!
She explained to me that she had missed the first bus (aka the one we had planned to take together) and they had then proceeded to take the second bus that left a bit later. They basically got to Skellefteå around one hour after me and Hasakitsuki, no biggie.

Because it started raining so damn much I spent the whole Friday indoors just checking stuff out. There were some scene games being done and I ended up watching the "mummy" game, which consisted of two teams and one person per team being the mummy. The mummy was to stand still while the other team mates wrapped them up as fast and neat as possible into a... well, mummy. Then the audience got to choose which mummy was the "more mummy" one and that one was declared the winner. xD Part two consisted of the two mummies breaking out of their bandages as fast as they could, without any outside help. The one who got out first won.
It was funny because the teams were called "Team Awesome" and "Team Pretty Okay" and, funnily enough, team Pretty Okay was the one to win lol.

Mummy game going on.

Later on Friday there was a lone guy doing an iaido display.
Of course I went to watch! I'm a big budo fan and I love Japanese swords and samurai and all of that kind of stuff! :') It was cool to see him doing all these moves and, after it was over, I went up to talk with him. We ended up hanging together for the whole con! Woop woop, new friends! :D

Iaido display.

I checked out the video game room several times and there were plenty of different game consoles you could pick from! Everything from good ol' Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 to the new generation consoles!

Gaming room!

Video game tournament lists!

As you can see above there was a Mario Kart: Double Dash!! 2 versus 2 tournament being held this year too. Last year me and my bro Jäätynyt Enkeli signed up for this tournament and we ended up combing home grand victory and crushing everyone! x) You can read about it over at my last year's Skecon summary, if interested. ;)
But yeah, seeing how my dear brother wasn't here this time I didn't participate. Also I kinda didn't want to have people recognize me and go all "OH SHIT, IT'S THAT GUY AGAIN WHO PWNED EVERYONE LAST YEAR" at me, oops. xD I did consider going to watch the tournament though, although my presence might have been... interesting...

Someone had started making Vegeta but quit...?

When it got late I changed out of cosplay and our full company headed to the sleeping accommodation place, which was a school. At first we ended up going the wrong way because we thought it would be in the same place as last year, which it was but still wasn't. We did find our way and I need to mention that yeah, it was very close to the previous sleeping accommodation and we could have walked the "wrong way" and still got there. OTL Different building though.
We fell asleep without any problems, even though for some reason we were the first ones to go sleep and I saw no one else in the same classroom (even though matresses and sleeping bags were put down) even past midnight – were everyone party harding?
The derp discussions before we fell asleep were glorious though. XD I'll just say that it ended up with Metaporn Metapod fanfic ideas and some really disturbing things lol.

Saturday morning came and we lagged around after our alarms had rung. We ended up going to the con during a time that we thought was late... just to realize that when we got to the con the cafeteria wasn't even open so we couldn't get instant breakfast! What you mean it opens at 10? :c
Oh well, it was no big deal so we just sat on one of the tables next to the cafeteria and waited for our brains to start running. Eventually the cafeteria opened and we bought some frozen pies to eat that we threw into the micro. Too bad my pie was cold so it wasn't pleasant to eat, but I managed.
After getting some food I just checked the merchandise hall and went to double-check if the kyudo display really was cancelled and yes, it was. :'( It was supposed to be during Saturday afternoon but it was cancelled because someone got sick. It was a big bummer for me because getting to do kyudo is one of the things I enjoy the most at Skecon. Also the bouncy castle was nowhere to be seen, which was bummer number two...

Oh well, I went to check the merchandise hall and stuff until I felt like changing into cosplay. Luckily on Saturday it wasn't as deadly hot as the day before, so putting on cosplay didn't feel as blergh. What felt blergh though was putting on my colored contact lenses!
I swear that during the whole Friday my eyes had alternated between feeling dry and irritated to being watery. It was horrible and I had hoped that it would go away by Saturday but guess what? LOLFUCKINGNOPE. :'DD
I wasn't keen on wearing my lenses but I did so anyway, just for the sake of the photoshoot. I was hoping that my eyes wouldn't start crying and because of some miracle they didn't – I could even stand the lenses for longer than I thought!

My cosplay of the day was Kojirou Sasaki from Iza, Shutsujin! Koi Ikusa.
(yes, this is the obligatory cosplay selfie)

I had to style my wig when I put it on but it went nicely. I just put some pins here and some pins there and put styling products into the bangs.
When I was done I asked Hasakitsuki for a photoshoot, but poop happened I AM THE GREAT MIGHTY POO and I got Sairu-chan to photoshoot me instead. Much to our disappointment it of course started raining half-way through our shoot and we had to cut it short and return back inside. Aargh weather,  y u do dis? >:C It was all nice just before...
At least we got a few good shots although most of the time the camera wasn't cooperating and, when it was, then of course my face wasn't cooperating. :-DD

Cosplayer: Shiro Samurai (Kojirou Sasaki)
Photographer: Sairu-chan
Photo editor: Shiro Samurai

We returned back inside and after a while everyone –including the iaido guy named Nils who had become part of our group– had gotten fairly hungry so we headed out to town to find food. A bit past half-way it started raining and I was cursing myself for not having changed into my everyday shoes instead of keeping on wearing my brand new geta, which took a lot of damage from all the fucking stones on the way...
I kept being behind everyone else because I had to constantly stop to poke away stones that had got stuck under my geta. At this point I was feeling kinda bad so being constantly behind everyone made me feel a bit left out.
When we finally reached Subway I was feeling anxious and, when it was my turn to order, I just felt all kinds of stress so I didn't manage to order anything and just went to sit on one of the tables instead. I hate getting these kind of anxiety attacks in public places...
Everyone sat and ate their sandwiches while I was hating myself for making a fool out of me; I didn't even manage to answer the person at the counter because I stumbled on my words. I must have looked like an idiot. ._. I just felt like a mess and then I started feeling sick which led me to lose my apetite anyway...

We walked back to Skecon just in time for the Vocaloid concert, the main selling point of the whole con. I honestly wasn't really in the mood because I was still feeling anxious, but I took a chair and went to sit and watch it anyway.

The Vocaloid concert started off with Miku (of course) singing Senbonzakura.

Watching the concert made me cheer up, even though it was a  big disappointment that there were no Gakupo nor Kaito songs, even though that's what everyone had said that they wanted to see when Skecon had asked over at Facebook for song suggestions. :( I recognized some of the songs were the same ones from last year too. I guess I was less fascinated by it this time around because I had already seen it once before and the novelty had worn off a bit; it was still a cool concert of course but for someone who pretty much only listens to Gakupo it was quite the letdown that there were no Gakupo songs even though that's what people had commented that they wanted the most.

Notice the two kendo peeps in the audience on the photo above; their shinai swords had glowsticks on them and during the concert they did multiple kendo swings with the swords (haya suburi) so it gave a sort of light saber effect. xD It was hella genius and actually entertained me more than the concert itself. LOL What you mean I used to do kendo and love it?

The audience was in the mood!

Luka Megurine sang a couple songs, one of them was Just Be Friends.

Rin and Len Kagamine duet song.

People in the audience going wild!

The audience did this thing that you hold the person in front of you on the shoulders until you make a human train and then you just walk around being all noisy and hyped and try to get as many to join in
as possible. :'D
I've seen people do this many times but most times I'm just too lazy to tag along... hahaah.

Skecon's own maskot Rosu finishing the concert with the
*surprise surprise* super popular Karamelldansen song.

I honestly don't remember what we did directly after the Vocaloid concert but I think we just hung around with Nils in the cafeteria and chatted for a while. At some point a guy cosplaying Obi-Wan Kenobi from Star Wars showed up and Sairu-chan's bro went to ask him for a photo. I took this opportunity in use and took some photos of him too – he was hella cool!
He ended up sitting with us and then we started talking and he talked about his costume and how expensive it and the light saber was. He also had a Hakuouki drinking bottle and he had no idea it was Hakuouki. xD I ended up suggesting a photoshoot for Obi-Wan and we went outside to take some pics – it was super fun and it got me fully back into the con mood!

One of the Obi-Wan Kenobi photoshoot pics!
Photography by me, Shiro Samurai.

 ★ Check out the rest of the Obi-Wan Kenobi photoshoot pictures here! ★

Both Nils, Obi-Wan Kenobi (alias Mattias) and another guy ended up in our company and we talked until it was around midnight and that's when I finally went to take off my costume. It was a lot of fun to hang around these guys!

Random con photo of the main scene area.

After I had taken off my cosplay everyone had kinda just gone somewhere and we decided to go sleep. It was funny to see Nils sleeping on the couch at the sleeping accommodation's hall (aka not in the classrooms) on the following morning; we had earlier seen that another random guy did it and everyone had thought "man, wish I had been clever enough to do that!". xD

Sunday morning came and I felt like a goblin. Holy shit did my eyes feel bad!
I felt so slow and blöärägshjshj that I seriously couldn't be bothered to put on my Sunday cosplay; very few were in cosplay anyway and there was a random Sunday market outside, which made the outside area filled to the brim with non-congoers and thus not very good for photoshoots – who wants a lot of people and market stands photocrashing in the background? Not me!
So yeah, I was in my casual gear on Sunday and it felt relieving. I was just way too tired to cosplay on the last day.
Most of the day I just spent hanging around and then the very last hours I spent playing Super Mario World (OMG my childhood! ♡) in the gaming room together with Sairu-chan's brother. That was one of the highlights of the con – we had shitloads of fun!

Random con photo showing the "garderob" area, aka where you dumped all
your stuff that you didn't want to carry around the whole weekend.

Merchandise hall feat. glorious photobomb!

I am probably forgetting to mention so many things but oh well, shit happens. :'D I need to mention though that at some point I was sitting in the cafeteria area and then I heard that a certain song was playing.. "I AAAAAM THE GREAT MIGHTY POO, AND I'M GOING TO THROW MY SHIT AT YOOOOU ~". At this point I cracked up so badly because seriously, just a few days prior my awesome friend Marcus had started singing this song, during a gaming night, and now it was playing at Skecon and I actually got to hear the whole song for the first time! Coincidence or not??

Okay so.. Skecon is always great but this year it wasn't quite as good as last year, in my opinion. This is mainly because the things I was looking forward to the most didn't happen. :( And because the weather screwed up my photoshoot plans.

What made Skecon a nice experience was all the people I met there, both new and old faces! There's always so many awesome people attending that it's hard to not find someone who's a blast to be around. I want to thank everyone who talked to me and who made this Skecon a great experience!

Thanks for reading and bye bye! ~

Shiro Samurai out.

Skecon 2015 – Cosplay plans revealed!

Hello everyone, how's it rollin'? ;)

As some of you might know, Skecon is soon around the corner and I am heading there as per usual! I'm a Skecon-lover since 2012, aka when the very first one was held. ♡

In case someone here is now like "Skecon?" then yeah, it's a small but constantly growing little anime convention held this year during 3-5 July in Skellefteå, Sweden. What puts Skecon apart from other similar events in the north is that the people behind it are ambitious like no one's business and they also have the passion to get unique/refreshing entertainment to the con itself – basically saying that Skecon does things other cons don't, and by that I mean good things. For example, last year they were the first con to hold a Vocaloid concert in all of Sweden and veeery likely the rest of northern Europe as well! The Vocaloid concert will be held this year too, by the way. *hint hint* 

Yep yep, Skecon isn't one of my favorite conventions for no reason. ;) It's just such a comfy con with a wonderful location, a lot to do (gaming room etc) and it's just awesome overall – certainly one of the cons that I'd hate to miss out on, period.

But hey, I think that's enough pre-hyping so let's get to the cosplay plans now!

At first I had a different line-up in mind but then I thought that I felt more like cosplaying these characters instead; I just hope that the weather won't be horrible because I wouldn't be smiling about either rain or a case of oh-holy-shit-I'm-being-grilled-alive. -.-

But now, cosplays!

Friday

Series: Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan
Character: Hajime Saitou

It's time to step back into the Hakuouki wagon again!
You thought my interest had maybe calmed down a bit by now? Lolnope! :'DD neverrr
Saitou is nice to cosplay and I really want to have a new photoshoot too; Skecon has wonderful photo-friendly areas outside so I'm thinking that this should be the perfect opportunity to get some good updated shots of this costume!

Saturday

Series: Iza, Shutsujin! Koi Ikusa
Character: Kojirou Sasaki

Another cosplay debut!

I've actually wanted to cosplay this guy for a few years now and finally I'm getting around to it! I just hope that the wig won't betray me because I have yet to style it... x)

Otherwise I'm really not expecting anyone to recognize who I'm cosplaying lol. If someone does I'm gonna be so surprised that I'll eat pickles for the rest of the month...

Sunday

Series: Rentarou Satomi
Character: Black Bullet (anime version)

New cosplay!

I've already mentioned at the beginning of the year that I was planning on cosplaying this fellow and now it's happening! I likely won't have the gun this time around though because well, money issues. :< I'll add it later. I really don't have 1000+ SEK to spend on a prop right now. *coughairsoftreplicacough*

The reason I'm doing the anime version is because in the anime he has brown eyes (manga has blue) and so far I've only watched the anime, so it feels more "right" to do the anime version for now, heheh.

~~~~~~~~~~

And that's my plans for Skecon 2015! I want to mention though that I might change on which day I wear what cosplay if the weather is really hot, rainy or such.
I hope to meet many familiar faces at the con and I'm sure that it will be a blast! I'm also hoping that the bouncy castle will return because seriously, dangnabbit! 

I'm just really excited because Skecon is something so wonderful – I get hyped just thinking about it!

That's all!
Stay alert though, I might do some kind of cosplay test-run post just before the con!

Lens review: TheDollyEye Pop C Dark Blue

Hello everyone out there!

I have a new lens review up to share with you all and this time it's the Pop C Dark Blue lenses by TheDollyEye! o/ I'm actually really confused as to who is the real manufacturer of these lenses (TheDollyEye is a rebranding label) because I've seen some sites list them as EOS while others say Dueba. I honestly don't know. ^^"

Oh well, let's get to the review ~

Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 15.0 mm

Water content: 55%

Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)

Lenses in their vials, held up against the window.

Held up but with a flashlight (white/blue light) right under the vials.

Lens on my finger, "wrong" side up.

Please do note that these lens details I took from what it says on the TheDollyEye vials that I have. I've noticed that on PinkyParadise these lenses have a different base curve, diameter and even water content! (note: mine are not bought from Pinky)
That said I don't know which one is the real one or if there is different versions/batches/whatnot of the same lens.

One lens in.

My very first reaction when I put the first lens into my eye and looked in the mirror was "man, these are much more black-toned than I was expecting", along with "these are rather small". They don't seem like 15.0 mm lenses to me, pfft.
I think that they might be fairly similar in size to the Neo Celeb Violet lenses; actually, when I think about it, these are rather similar to the Neo Celeb series in many ways – both have a similar lens design, look similar when worn (except that the Pop C appears darker and shows less of the color, in this case blue) and the enlargement is on the smaller side of average but still noticeable.

The first time I wore these they went into my eyes no problem. My left eye started, after one minute or so, to feel like there was something annoying it slightly; I moved the lens in my eye and then my eye was suddenly crying and the feeling of irritation got stronger. I took the lens out, cleaned it and put it back in and this time it was fine.

All photos are taken during a cloudy afternoon, around 15:30-ish. Photos are all taken by me, as is to be expected. ;) I'm sorry about the quality though, my camera didn't want to be my friend this day...

Facing the window in the apartment.
(our window always has the sun facing it on morning/mid-day)

Flash photo indoors.

Bathroom light, part one.

Bathroom light, part two.

Facing a yellow corridor light.

Next to a crappy weak yellow light in the staircase.

Outdoors with my back against the light.

Outdoors facing the sun.

Actually, for some reason these lenses look more blue on photos than in real life, at least according to me. xD But yeah, I do like the color of these although I would have hoped for a bit more blue color and maybe a bit less black; now it kinda looks like the black is a tad overwhelming. It's not a bad thing though, it does give a rather rad effect and on some days I really like the dark look it gives.

In terms of comfort I think these are on the better end of average; I've worn them for around 4 hours no problem a couple of times. I do sometimes have this very slight feeling in my eye that I'm wearing contacts but it's not bothersome at all, really minor.
Overall I do like these lenses, although I'm not sure if I would repurchase them – maybe if I needed them for a character with black-blue eyes because, funnily enough, these look lighter and more blue on photos than what they do in real life, as I already mentioned before. I'm actually surprised how much nicer they look on photos... it's a bit of a bummer, haha. xD

Lastly I have the usual from-a-distance photo!

Facing window during a rather sunny day.
(note: this photo was taken on a different day than the rest)

Want to see these lenses in other colors?

I've reviewed a pair here: Green

Short summary:

Color: 6/10
It shows as dark blue, yeah, but I was kinda hoping for a bit more blue and a bit less... black.
Design: 7/10
These give me the whole "hey I've seen similar lenses out there!" reaction but they do look good nonetheless.
Opacity: 7/10
It does its job, but somehow it seems like my own eye color shows through in certain lights when viewed from a distance.
Enlargement: 4/10
Enlargement is okay.
Comfort: 7/10 
Comfort is on the better end of average I'd say.
Naturalness: 3/10
These aren't really natural because of the obvious black limbal ring, but it's still not bad either.

That's all for this round! Bub-bai ~

Kummacon 2015 – Pikkuconi ja puolikas vesimelooni

Hellou ~

Now I've finally gotten around to writing this short summary about my Kummacon experience!
I pardon for the lateness (the con was on 14th June so yeah, more than one week ago) but I must admit that the culprit this time wasn't laziness or busy-ness or any of the other commonly used excuses – it was honestly just me playing way too much Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate with friends. xD I'm seriously addicted to this game to the point that checking internet doesn't even feel tempting and well, that's saying a lot because hey, that's normally one of my top daily priorities! When opening the computer doesn't interest me then there's something horribly wrong lol. I just sit and slay wyverns and pink farting monkeys all day instead, huehuehue. I'm past 110 hours of gameplay and I've had the game for like, less than 2 weeks...? Oops.

Okey so, ehrrm, yeah, Kummacon. Let's get back to that!
So yeah, in case someone reading this doesn't know then I'll just fill you in and say that Kummacon was a small first-time convention held at Oulu in northern Finland; it had free entrance. It's a mixed fandom event (anime & manga, Western movies and comics, cosplay, literature, airsoft, zombie walk etc) that was held on the 14th June which, when you look at the calendar, you will notice is actually a Sunday. Yep, now that's unusual!
Oh, and before someone –who doesn't understand Finnish– wonders what the other half of this post's title means it translates to something like "a small con and half a water melon". You'll understand why soon enough... and yes, I do like goofy titles.

This time only me and Hasakitsuki attended the event; Jäätynyt Enkeli would have come too had he not had a trip to Germany a few days after. I did know though that Sairu-chan was attending, so I didn't leave for the con with the "I'll see no familiar faces" mindset.
As per usual my awesome aunt provided us two a free sleeping place because she lives in Oulu, duh. We arrived at le aunt's place on Saturday evening and yep, everything went smoothly. There's not really anything to say about my pre-con experience, expect that I played on my new New Nintendo 3DS XL, which I had put to use mere days before the event. It was a good choice to actually start playing on it now; I finally feel a bit updated in the gaming scene, hahaha. (but srsly, who came up with that name? New Nintendo 3DS. ._. It's so clumsy in everyday speech to specify that it's the "New" all the time, hurpdurp – "yeah I want to buy the new New Nintendo 3DS. :-DDD The new new....... pew pew. chew chew)

Sunday morning came. I don't know why but I had regained consciousness several times during the night, as if my sleep kept being really hacky or something. There was not anything to disturb me that morning and I never actually got up from bed or opened my eyes nor anything, it's just that I recall being aware that "hey, I'm not dreaming right now and it's the middle of the night" kind of thing. Con hype or nervousness, perhaps?
Whatever kept me from having a normal sleep wasn't only after my sleep – it wanted to screw up other things too! Yeah, you can guess. -.- Directly after breakfast my stomach started making silly roaring sounds and it felt weird and, err, by the time I got to the point I had started putting on my costume and doing the makeup then, well, I spent way longer in the bathroom than I should have. No one wants the details so I'll just leave it at that lol. Worst part is that shitty issues (quite literally, at times) seem a recurring annoyance to me whenever I'm either preparing for an event or something else that's important and, especially, when I have a time limit to keep tabs on. I dunno if it's some kind of "stress stomach" case or what but boy is it annoying when it happens.

Oh well, I got my costume on and we were ready to head out!
Much to our luck the weather was actually appropriate for the month this time – it was fairly warm but not too much. I swear we've had shitty April/autumn weather all the time and the actually sunny and nice days have been so few that I could count them on the fingers of one hand...

Yamato no Kami Yasusada is ready to go!
(note: mirror photo, hence why my kimono is reversed)

When we got to the now familiar Valve building I first headed straight for the bathroom – I reaaaally needed to fix my wig because it was living its own life! Even though the clip-on ponytail is short it's still surprisingly heavy (much fibers, I assume) and during the whole walk through the city it kept pulling my wig backwards; I should sew on some clips to the wig the next time I wear it...
At the bathroom I took the wig off and what do I see? My wig cap isn't even on my head anymore lol. No wonder why my real hair was peeking out like parasites all over the place and didn't stay under the wig when I poked them back in. Oh well, it was an easy fix – I just put the wig hooks on and prepared for the obligatory wig headache that usually follows shortly. You see, normally I almost never use the wig hooks because I seemingly have a rather big head to begin with and, well, most wigs are small-ish on me anyway so there is rarely a need to use them.

Valve building entrance.

Valve as a con hosting place is pretty okay... but it's still rather small and it feels crammed and narrow – wherever you look there is a mass of people constantly on the move; there is not much in the name of a breathing hole, unless you go outside of course. But Valve has its charm and I've started taking a liking to the darn place, hahah. I guess the crappy "let's have a con at the library!" experience adds to that feeling somehow... :'D

This is the sight you were met by as soon as you entered the front doors.

In front of Valvesali. If you turned left after passing this first "door" you
got to the merchandise area.

The one and only merchandise seller.
There was also a "visitor's selling table", aka where con visitors could
leave stuff they didn't want/need anymore for sale, during con time.

Of course there was the Artist's Alley as well.
Notice the seller closest to the camera – she's selling self-made colorful kanzashi
hair decorations! Now that's something out of the ordinary!

Kummacon in itself I didn't have much expectations for in terms of entertainment value – small cons in the north rarely provide anything spectacular. When you've been 20 minutes in the con you had seen it all.
Most of the time I spent hanging around with both old and new friends, going on a stroll in the city (scout for a lunch place!) as well as playing on my Nintendo 3DS. omg the Mii army I got on the StreetPass games, it was awesome!

Time to sit down and play! :D

Of course that there were a fair amount of more-or-less-interesting panels of many different subjects but, err, I'm not the kind to attend several panels in a row because it just tires me out and then I lose concentration/interest (been there, done that) and yes, that's totally why I ended up only attending one panel, even though there would have been at least one more that was interesting; there was the armor-making panel by Sheriff's Anvil (which I definitely wanted to attend) and then there was a cosplay photography panel. The problem was that both of these were placed in the same room and right after one another.
I ended up choosing to go only to the armor panel because that one I thought that I'd be more likely to learn something new from – after all, I did attend a photography panel at Kemi's manga day last year.

The entrance seen from above.

The Artist's Alley area (and the cafeteria to the far left) seen from above.

There was also a gallery for comics in the same building. This is
the Kiroileva Siili comic (lit. swearing hedgehog) which is well-known
in Finland.

About the armor-making panel itself I can say that it was a good one. It seemed to be targeted towards people who are new to armored cosplays (I still don't know if I count myself in that group or in the not-quite-so-newbie one, haha) and while it mostly had a "how I made this specific cosplay of mine" focus the panelist took up the step-by-step process of making the costume come true, which, in turn, can be applied for many different types of armored characters; he gave good starting pointers and all of that.
I personally found that dragging my hakama-clothed ass to the panel was a good investment and yes, it kept me interested through the whole run! The guy holding it was also funny and spoke in this kind of way that was entertaining, at least in my opinion. I do think that panelist holders who are expressive, pull jokes and use a lot of different voices are much more fun to listen to, haha. Also, this guy was clearly passionate about his work and about inspiring others and that was a pleasure to see.

Panel photos!
If you want to read the text I recommend that you open the image in a new tab to get the full-size version, in case your computer shows a resized image when you click on them through the blog.

The panel was held in Valvesali. Before the panel started there was
the Kummacon logo on the big screen.

He took off his cosplay and put the pieces on the scene, so that everyone who
wanted could go and take a look at how they were made. Really nice!

Sairu-chan and Karri showed up a bit later and I spent most of the con being around their company. I did a quick photoshoot for Sairu-chan outside and... eheheh... it ended up being a rather glorious passing of time because of all the photobomb tries that were provided by Karri and another guy. Karri just kept running into and crashing half the photos, it was golden. x) He also imitated Donald Duck's voice and said different things in said voice, including "feels good man" as well as some other lines from that really silly "Akun kakkaongelma" (lit. Donald's shit problem) video on Youtube that has gotten well-known in Finland by now. xD

Photobomb success! (provided by Emil, if I remember his name correctly)

Karri ninja photobomb!
(and he kinda got photobombed by the leaves, which means
photobomb in a photobomb. yo dawg)

This was actually just Karri being funny and picking up Sairu-chan but
it ended up looking like a scene from a cheesy romance movie. xD

Oh, and let's not forget Karri's awesome super crouch walk up the steps!
LIKE A BOSS. (yes, he walked up all the steps like that)

At some point after the photoshoot derping we passed by a nearby area of Valve and there we saw something bizarre and totally out of place – half a water melon left at the whatever park-like thingy!
It was so unexpected that we all went completely "WATER MELOOOOOOOOOONNNNNN" over it and did hilarious fake gasps and surprised faces at each other.. and then we started half-running in another direction. xD Too bad that I don't have picture proof of the melon but it definitely got the gold medal in the "surprise motherfucker!" category.

Towards the end of the con our group of four headed towards a pub that Karri knew – one of his friends worked there. At the pub I felt quite uncomfortable (I'm not a drinker and the atmosphere is not really to my liking) and I considered leaving when Sairu-chan left, but Karri cheered me up and made me stay. He and Hasakitsuki played chess and I just watched and was more or less bored... until a mention of Skecon was uttered and Karri took great interest in wanting to attend the con with us! Yep yep, we might very likely have a new face attending Skecon this year – OMGYES!!
By the time we left the pub the con was close to over so we just took a quick look inside and then headed back to aunt's place. Karri followed with us back for a visit and we ended up playing Super Mario 3D World all three of us and, duuude, was it fun!

But yeah, Kummacon was an overall nice experience in my book – I would likely attend it again if a second edition comes. Even though for most part it felt the same as Animeseminaari because it was in the same building, except that Kummacon was a bit more varied, haha. I didn't notice any clumsy or lacking arranging of the event (seeing how it was a first-time con) but I heard that the cosplay competition had issues and some weird solutions going on. By "weird solutions" I mean that I've heard from others that because the competition had some time issues it was decided that the audience shouldn't clap their hands at all for the contestants when they were on stage.
Why, I wonder?
To save time, I heard.
That's just so weird and not okay that I can't but raise the nope flag. Just... why? ._. Surely there must have been better solutions out there than to cut out something that barely takes time and is a rather important way of encouraging and showing appreciation to whoever is on stage... boo.

Oh well, I don't have much more to add. I am always happy to see that new geeky events are sprouting, especially in the north. I hope that Kummacon won't be one of those "one time only" cases and that it will grow and be held in the future too.  
Psst! I didn't get a wig headache! :-DD

See ya!

Kummacon 2015 – Cosplay plans!

How's it going guys?

Remember how I implied earlier that Skecon would be my next convention? Well, that's not quite true anymore! ;)
You see, some time ago I was swimming around on the internet and then I happened to end up on Kummacon's website. Thing is that I already knew about this con... and I had completely forgotten about it, until now.
I guess that back when I first learned about it I just went like "oh, it's too close to Desucon so I can't be bothered" and then it left my brain completely, without a second thought. Now that it turned out that I didn't attend Desucon this year Kummacon suddenly turned a lot more interesting!
Sure that it's a one-day event but it's in Oulu (aka close, "only" ~100 km away), in the now familiar Valve building and my awesome aunt has informed that it's possible to stay at her place and BOOM – Kummacon, here I come!

I'm curious about Kummacon (lit. "weird con") because it's a new con that will be arranged for the first time this year – I'm always happy to see new geeky events sprouting in the north!
It's a mixed popular culture con so yep, there's the usual anime & manga and cosplay of course, but also board games, literature (Harry Potter books etc), television series & movies, comics and so on.
Kummacon welcomes both Japanese pop culture along with western fandoms, in other words – there's even space for zombie fans and other fabulous weirdos! ;)

...

But yeah, now to the cosplay plans!

At first I thought that I'd just do some random fancy non-cosplay outfit but, the more I thought about it the more I started feeling like I wanted to cosplay, after all. Been having a lot of on an off cosplay feelings lately. A quick thought about possible cosplay candidates (recycle edition) first ended up with Battousai version Kenshin, mainly because it was pretty long since I last cosplayed him, aka summer 2013, oops. But then I thought that Kenshin might be a bit too cumbersome to wear because I'm planning to attend panels (if I laugh the scar might start to peel off etc) and well, taking the swords off and putting them back in place several times seemed like a hassle I wasn't too keen on.
So yeah, I wanted something without props.. and preferably something new; something that I was currently into and that would be extra fun to cosplay. I've lately kinda been in a "cosplay rut", as if some of the excitement just wore off and I'm trying to find the fun again, idk? Because of this I wanted something fresh and new to wear – something that I'm currently hyped about and into; maybe it would help with getting the cosplay mood back on track...?

And what could that new and exciting series be?

– TOUKEN RANBU, of course. ♡

Character: Yamato no Kami Yasusada (uchiban version)
Series: Touken Ranbu

Yep, so this will be my debut into Touken Ranbu cosplay land!
I've been so into this shit ever since I first heard about it! I just love so many of the character designs to no end – perfect cosplay fodder for me lol; it's never gonna end. x) Yamato no Kami Yasusada is one of the favorites and was so from the very first time I saw him; he's just too cute haha. What makes him even more awesome to me is the fact that he is one of Souji Okita's swords – one of my favorite historical persons, yes please!

Nothing more to add.
A summary about Kummacon will follow after the con is over! Stay tuned!